


Vita Ante Acta

by idyll



Series: Solum Patriae [2]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen, Team
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-01
Updated: 2007-02-01
Packaged: 2017-10-07 10:33:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/64290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idyll/pseuds/idyll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ronon breathes deep, taking in the scent that's fading, and he remembers Sateda in autumn, when a chill began to creep slowly into the air.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vita Ante Acta

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Arsenic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsenic/gifts).



Ronon doesn't notice it until after he's released from the infirmary and is back in his quarters. He's lying on his stomach on the bed, ignoring the itching of the stitches in his back, and it's the smell that finds him first. He stiffens, thinking he's imagining it, but then he inhales deeply and carefully and, yes, it's here. He rolls slowly to his feet, doing his best not to disturb air currents, and tracks it to the corner of his room.

It's coming from his boots and when he crouches down and examines them he sees the dark green clumps caught in the tread on the bottom of one.

"Huh."

*

At lunch the next day Teyla asks, "Ronon, what was it like to be on Sateda again?"

McKay and Sheppard both look up from their trays with interest and Ronon shrugs. "Weird. It was all...different."

"What was it like before--" Sheppard begins, and even McKay seems to be amazed at the tactlessness. "Sorry," Sheppard mutters, his face crumpling into apologetic lines.

Ronon stares at his food and if he could he would tell Sheppard, tell them all, what his home and life were like _before_, but it's not something he could describe in a few sentences, and he's never been one to let words come unbidden and hope they'll eventually take him where he's trying to go.

*

For the next week the barely-there scent of _gaen_ teases Ronon's senses in his room at night, and instead of falling right to sleep he lies awake for long stretches of time before finally leaving his room in desperation.

The first night he searches out Sheppard, who he finds doing a patrol sweep through the city, which is unnecessary from the perspective of the actual patrol team that is assigned to do just that, but is necessary from Sheppard's perspective, and Ronon understands.

"Hey. You still up?"

Ronon nods and falls into step with him. They make their way down corridors, past all of the science labs, which are mostly dark and empty due to the late hour. The exception is McKay's personal lab, which is lit up and occupied.

"Rodney," Sheppard drawls sharply, and McKay waves him away without turning around. "Two more hours, and that's it. Next shift has orders from me to evict you. Got it?"

"Yes, you fascist layman, now leave before you distract me."

Sheppard gives Ronon a look when he continues to tag along, and Ronon doesn't know why he's doing it, or what the lump at the back of his throat is, so he veers off at a hallway intersection and goes back to his room.

The next night Ronon goes out to the mainland but ends up calling back to the city for a Jumper to come pick him up in the middle of the night, unable to stay and unsure of why.

The night after that he sits in on an all night poker game with some of the marines, but he's distracted and loses often despite that he generally does rather well.

Finally he goes to Teyla's quarters and rings the door chime, only to realize, when she answers the door sleep-tussled and thick-lidded, that he has no idea why he's come here.

"Sorry. Never mind."

Teyla catches his arm before he turns. "Ronon? Is everything okay? You have been...out of sorts for several days." She arches a brow. "Since Sateda, in fact. Do you need to talk?"

Ronon shakes his head because he needs to do something, maybe talk, but he's not sure what he would say, or even if he needs to say anything at all.

"Sorry," he says again and tugs his arm free of her gentle grip.

Back in his room that night Ronon breathes deep, taking in the scent that's fading, and he remembers Sateda in autumn, when a chill began to creep slowly into the air, and the large _gaen_ field that was the centerpiece of his town would start to dry out in preparation for a winter of sleep. There were fall festivals every year, and as a child he both loved and hated them. They signaled the end of summer and long nights out in the open with family and friends, but they were also week long events that were attended by everyone in town, with sporting and fighting competitions, laughter, music and fires.

There isn't anyone left from Ronon's town, not even among the few hundred Satedans who survived. There is no one left alive who remembers and knows these things, and Ronon wishes that he could share it with his teammates, could let them in on the memories and feelings tied to the _gaen_.

*

The life sciences labs are green smelling and the air is wet and thick, and everyone in them is tall, pale, and too-thin of frame. They gape openly at Ronon when he makes his way to the innermost lab, some with wariness but most with outright fear. It's partly understandable because Ronon's never been down here before and he suspects that everyone believes McKay has trained him to look down on them, as McKay himself does.

Ronon doesn't really care about their work, and he only cares enough about McKay's to appreciate that it saves their asses more often than it causes the danger in the first place.

"Which one is Parrish?" Ronon asks a young woman in a white coat. She blinks nervously then twists at the torso to point to a large work table towards the back of the room, where a red haired man is peering intently at a tangle of roots.

Because Ronon _has_ learned many things since coming to Atlantis, and understands the concept of sample contamination, he picks up a plastic bin from a stack of them and sets his boot in it, then drops the entire thing on Parrish's work area.

Parrish jumps and accidentally swipes a specimen jar off the table. Ronon just manages to catch it before it crashes to the floor, and he sets it carefully back on the table.

"Who can help me with this?" Ronon asks and gestures at his boot.

"Um. Hello. Yes. Hi."

Ronon looks down at him. "Hi. Who can help me with this? Beckett said to ask you."

Parrish blinks several times, then licks his lips and takes a breath. "What exactly do you need help with?"

Ronon points at his boot in the plastic bin. "That. I want to keep it alive."

When Parrish's gaze follows Ronon's finger he frowns in confusion, but it shifts into interest when he realizes it's the clumps that Ronon's pointing at, and not the boot itself. Parrish strips off his gloves and stuffs them into a bright red receptacle, then retrieves another pair from a shelf behind him, which he dons before lifting Ronon's boot carefully from the bin.

"Hm. What is this, do you know?"

"We called it _gaen_," Ronon tells him.

"It seems remarkably like moss, but the texture seems different even just going by a visual comparison. Any unique qualities?"

"What would be unique?" Ronon asks.

Parrish flushes. "Oh, right. You're not...from Earth. Um. Okay. Just tell me what you know?"

"It grew on my home planet. Always in dark, shaded places. It went deep and spread far. When you stepped on it, it...gave way and fit around your shape."

"Really? Huh. That's fascinating. And you want to keep these sample pieces alive, is that it?"

Ronon nods. "I don't know how. Beckett said you'd know, or could tell me who knows."

"I can do it," Parrish says with confidence. "I might lose some of the natural scent in the process, though."

Ronon nods. "Can you put it in something for me? A container. To keep in my room."

Parrish stares at him searchingly, lips pursing, and Ronon sees the exact moment when Parrish puts together who Ronon is and understands that his home planet is...no more. He nods slowly. "Yes, I--I can do that for you. With pleasure."

*

Parrish does more than that. When Ronon returns to the labs the following week he's already impressed that Parrish seems to have kept this a secret. but what he sees when Parrish leads him into an indoor garden is far more than Ronon expected

"You--" Ronon swallows and stares at the slab of rock, about a foot wide and high, which is coated with several inches of _gaen_. The rock itself has been set in a large glass case and is surrounded by welberry vines. They line the sides of the container and even hang from the grate on top, cascading down over the _gaen_ covered rock. Every inch or so along the vines there is a tightly closed bud, with a hint of purple showing through. "The plant. How?"

Parrish smiles happily. "We had some fauna samples from--um, Sateda. From last year." He shifts uncomfortably and Ronon nods; the MALP had taken samples to test the environment when Weir sent it to recon Sateda after Ronon's arrival. "As it turns out, this _gaen_, as you call it, will grow pervasively. Unless it encounters soil that's enriched with certain--" He goes on for many long minutes before realizing that Ronon's staring at him blankly and then he colors slightly and sums it up: "The flowers keep the _gaen_ from growing uncontrolled."

Ronon stares at the case and listens absently when Parrish tells him how to care for the plant. Welberry blossoms are unimpressive in the daylight, sparse and prickly and somewhat ugly. But at night the buds open up and large purple flowers blossom, delicate and soft and without fragrance. The flowers die by sunrise, falling off and drying up while the buds close again to create a new blossom that will bloom the next evening.

"This is more than I was expecting," Ronon says thickly. He takes hold of the other man's shoulders and looks down at him seriously, his throat lodged shut with memories and gratitude.

"You're, uh, welcome," Parrish says, awkward but pleased, and when Ronon looks back at the terrarium, as Parrish calls it, he laughs.

*

That evening Ronon watches the welberry blossoms open, his face just inches from the glass, and he continues watching all through the night, until the sun starts to come up and the flowers all break off and flutter to the bottom of the terrarium, and the buds pull closed chastely.

He wants to be able to bring the others here, point to the _gaen_ and the welberry plant, and say, "This is where I come from." But it wouldn't make sense without context, which isn't something he has for them. But he went to Parrish hoping to save a small bit of _gaen_ that he could keep in a container, and he got _this_ instead.

He wonders what else Parrish could do.

*

When Ronon returns to the labs Parrish looks up briefly with a distracted smile and Ronon waits until he reaches a stopping point and sets aside his tablet before speaking.

"On Sateda, there was a field of _gaen_. I want one here. Not in the city, on the mainland. Can you do that?"

Parrish thinks about it and eventually nods. "Yes, I can. Not quickly, and it won't be an exact match for a variety of reasons. But, yes."

*

.End

**Author's Note:**

> _Vita Ante Acta_ is latin for a life done before, or a previous life.


End file.
